Traditional lacework is a complex process of hand-stitching patterns onto a piece of parchment and linen, with a small piece often taking many hours to complete. Modern technology like laser-cut machines enable a similar effect to be achieved in unexpected forms and materials using computer software and mathematical algorithms.

LACESCAPE TABLE by Miro Roman and Luka Vlahovic features a pattern developed by Croatian lacemakers which was then digitally reproduced and fabricated. Produced on a sheet of metal rather than in textile form, the lace takes on a stiffness that allows it to be manipulated into complex surfaces.

The table is bent and folded into a simple, minimalist shape that balances the intricacy of the lace design. Two addition tables  in the series take the basic shapes from other traditional Croatian lace patterns and transform them into similarly streamlined tables.

Three digital processes make these tables possible: one creating infinite lace landscapes, one stylizing them, and the third giving them their origami-like shape. As such, explain the designers, the human working on these creations no longer manipulates the object itself, “but designs and directs the rules, systems and narratives that will generate, produce and promote that object.”

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“Almost a hundred years after Le Corbusier conceived a house as a machine for living in, we find ourselves in a similar situation. A house is now a series of overlapping machines – the ones for heating, cooling, cooking, informing; there, we can find computers, TVs, smartphones, ovens, air conditioning, refrigerators… Le Corbusier’s idea has been driven to infinity. Houses, buildings and cities are now becoming ‘organisms’ – a series of machines, which we control and simulate with powerful computers. Control, rationalization, optimization, logistics and science are celebrated, while design and architecture find their justifications, references and analogies in the ‘ideal machine’ – the nature itself.”

“On the other hand, concepts brought by postmodernism such as collaging, deconstructing and quoting cultural references are being lost in the idea of searching for the optimum, the ideal or a good enough model which describes our reality. The consequence of such an approach is the reduction of objects to a series of statistics, which cannot deal with the complexity of the society in which we live. Finally, by disregarding the cultural context and the interdependence of multiple factors that determine the object, we encounter the generic.”

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